Duck-blood pudding factory stops operations

By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

Wed, Feb 12, 2014 - Page 3

The nation’s largest duck-blood pudding manufacturer will face a fine of NT$600,000 (US$19,805) and has been forced to stop operations after it was found illegally discharging wastewater containing duck blood.

New Taipei City’s (新北市) Environmental Protection Bureau said Shuang Peng’s (雙鵬) factory, in New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林) was found late last month to be using secret underground pipelines to discharge dark red wastewater that gave off a foul odor. The pipes fed into a nearby ditch that flowed to the Dahan River (大漢溪).

The bureau said on Monday that the levels of suspended solids and biochemical and chemical oxygen demand in the wastewater samples that it collected were all found to exceed standards by at least 20 times.

Due to the severity of the violation, the bureau said it has decided to impose the heaviest fine under the Water Pollution Control Act (水污染防治法) of NT$600,000, ordering the company to stop operations and repealing its discharge permit.

The bureau’s inspection division received a report from the public of foul-smelling, blackish wastewater that was occasionally found near the Gan Yuan Number 2 Bridge (柑園二橋) in Shulin, but inspectors could not find the source at first.

Persistent efforts eventually led the inspectors to hidden pipelines leading back to the Shuang Peng duck-blood pudding factory, the bureau said.

The company’s general manager, surnamed Peng (彭), said on Monday night that the illegal discharge had been a result of an operational error by workers, rather than a deliberate act, and the company has asked technicians to inspect the factory’s wastewater treatment system.

Peng said the company is the nation’s largest and only legal duck-blood pudding manufacturer, responsible for about 70 percent of the market.

The company must install an automatic water quality monitoring system and pass inspections before it is allowed to regain its wastewater discharge permit and resume operations.